Berserk: Golden Age Arc I – The Egg of the King Anime Review

At first glance, to those who are not familiar with Kentaro Miura’s most famous work, Berserk might seem like the quintessential dark fantasy tale hailing from Japan; it features a brooding, quasi mad anti-hero clad in dark garb that wields the ridiculously big sword that’s also become a trope on its own. But behind what some may consider dated appearances lies a timeless story of ambition, kinship, and betrayal that is as human as it is monstrous.

This first part of the trilogy opens with the assault of a fortress by a band of mercenaries. Once they’ve broken inside, they’re pushed back by a giant man by the name of Bazuso, the “Grey Knight.” Guts, a youth with a sword the same length as he is tall, offers to kill him for a price. His victory catches the eye of Griffith, the leader of a famous mercenary group called the Band of the Hawk, that was tasked with the fortress’ defense.

Once he receives his payment, Guts walks away only to be ambushed by a small group of bandits that turn out to be from the Band of the Hawk, who are after his prize money. His skills in fending off the attackers prompt Griffith into action, who stops him with a single strike near the heart, and leaves him bleeding out until falling unconscious.

After a trippy nightmare and getting punched right in his new chest hole by Casca, the female soldier whose horse he chopped the legs off of in the previous fight, he’s invited by Griffith to join his group. Guts refuses and challenges him, making a wager that, if he wins, he gets to stab Griffith in the chest; but if he loses, Griffith can have anything he wants from him. The duel ends in favor of the Hawk’s leader, and Guts becomes a member of one of the most dangerous mercenary bands in service of the kingdom of Midland.

The story’s pacing up to now has been great.

Up to this point, at around the 27 minute mark, the flow of the story hasn’t felt too fast; and considering the amount of information that’s been condensed in this section, this is a feat worthy of praise. By now the audience knows the names and some of the main traits of the main characters, especially Guts. Through a dream sequence, we’re given clear hints of what Guts’ childhood was like, and we’ve already begun to see his transition from an overconfident, reckless fighter full of bravado, to someone that looks up and respects a figure with higher authority and skill level.

Those who have watched the ’97 anime adaptation or read the manga will notice that there are some details missing. As the movies go on, as is expected, the amount of things that get cut out, changed, or moved around starts piling one after the other — sometimes even leaving important plot points as little else than a random line spoken by a crowd of voices.

Three years have passed and we see two armies locked in battle, with one having a clear advantage over the other. A single rider carrying an enormous sword charges against the army with the upper hand and kills its general, along with any soldiers nearby. Soon the rest of the cavalry shows up and takes out the enemy forces.

These sort of dynamic sequences with numerous soldiers are the ones that both enrich the movie series as well as harm it. The use of 3D models for the characters makes it easier to change focus quickly during a battle to show the action from different points of view; presenting the audience with a back and forth game between aerial views and ground-level shots makes the scene seem all the more energetic and gruesome. The other side of the coin, though, is the overall stiffness of every move by those models, and when paired with textures that make surfaces look clean and smooth it takes away from the immersion, exposing it for what it really is: a CG choreography.

Once the battle is won and everyone is getting ready to celebrate, we see that little has changed from the last time we saw them; Guts is now captain of the raid unit but still acts recklessly, Casca strongly dislikes him, and the charismatic Griffith holds Guts in very high esteem.

The supernatural is a big element in the overall story, but the first big brush with it doesn’t occur until the siege of a certain castle. The raid unit’s advance is stopped and their commander has to look into the matter. Inside, Guts finds a lone warrior with features more beastly than human that has been butchering his comrades. This warrior turns out to be the legendary Zodd, who has been going from battle to battle for the past 200 years. Guts tries and monumentally fails to dispatch him, surviving with the help of Griffith and numerous other soldiers who died in the attempt.

The key moment of this part is one of my favorites: Zodd doesn’t stop his slaughter because he was defeated, but because he sees that Griffith carries with him a crimson pendant called the Behelit — the Egg of the King — which prompts him to simply go away; but not before auguring Guts’ death at the hands of the man he considers a friend.

This nature of being “stitched together” becomes a problem.

It’s now when one of the biggest weaknesses, if not the biggest, of the first movie is made glaringly obvious. Due to all that has been compressed into a film barely longer than an hour, it feels like seeing vignettes stitched together as coherently as possible to get a point across. But with the sheer volume of information dumped in front of us — even considering that there have been parts cut out — what this point is supposed to be, is not all that clear. While the vignettes themselves are well executed, this nature of being “stitched together” becomes a problem in the process of the audience bonding with the characters.

By this time the Hawks have not only made a name for themselves as probably the strongest troops in Midland, but also earned Griffith the status of noble. This doesn’t sit well with some of the highborns, mainly Count Julius, general of the White Dragon Knights and brother of the king. A failed assassination attempt on Griffith alerts him of Julius’ scheme, and he decides to play the same game.

In past scenes the audience might simply think that Griffith was kind of weird with how possessive he is of Guts, but what follows is perhaps the first sequence that clearly expresses that Griffith is not only capable and willing to act in cold blood, but also hints that he’s experienced at it.

Griffith tasks his most trusted soldier with the assassination of Julius. Stealth not being his forte, Guts follows through but barely escapes alive and, after a shocking experience, wanders around looking for Griffith. Casca, who up until now has been mostly grinding her teeth at the thought of Guts being alive, finally decides to lend him a hand when she sees her brother-in-arms acting confused and agitated.

The movie does a good job unveiling Griffith’s true personality.

The movie ends in a pivotal scene that cements the idea given by Julius’ execution: that behind Griffith’s charisma and silver tongue lies something more sinister and ominous. Above I mentioned that the movie’s compilatory nature muddles its intention, but of the many objectives it hinted at, unveiling this aspect of Griffith’s personality was definitely one that was achieved; and closing this first installment with the declaration to the princess of his obsession with “his dream,” and the criteria someone has to meet for him to call them “a friend” is, perhaps, the best way with which to do so.

As a fan of Berserk I enjoyed watching this film, even with its many flaws; and watching it for a second, third, or fourth time, it reinforces its good parts more than it accentuates its limitations and mistakes, which is not something that I can say of many movies or shows. That said, judging it as a film on its own, it would fall apart due to being more of a patchwork than a self-contained story.

To those that cannot stand anime compilation movies like Evangelion: Death & Rebirth, the first two Madoka Magica movies, or the Gurren Lagann movies (among many other examples) and who have seen the ’97 adaptation or read the manga, there’s little for them here that isn’t simply revisiting known events through a new rendition with an odd mix of 3D and 2D animation of varying levels of quality. To the newer audience that knows next to nothing of Berserk, this may seem like an easy way to jump in, but that’s only if you’re okay with a heavily abridged adaptation.